It use to only be companies that ran server farms or other high performance computing operations looking for ways to save money on the power bill. With such large scale operations, every watt makes a big difference to the yearly power bill. Nowadays, even every day computer users are looking for ways to cut back on their power consumption. Today, we'll be checking out some memory from Kingston Technology that does just that.

Saving power in a computer system has a cumulative effect. This means that every bit helps. Kingston has been able to accomplish some extra power savings with with their newest HyperX 4GB 1866MHz LoVo DDDR3 memory modules. Or maybe low voltage means high overclocking? Let's see how they do in testing.

Features and Specifications

The LoVo series leads the market with the new JEDEC low voltage industry standard. Kingston's state of the art LoVo DDR3 memory requires a meager 1.25 volts to operate at 1333MHz. And, they've been able to engineer these low voltage memory modules at 1600MHz, 1800MHz, as well as our impressive 1866MHz memory kit here requiring an impressively low 1.35 volts.

The timings clock in at 9-9-9-27 which isn't really an issue. Why? Well, most energy conscious users aren't interested in overclocking or benchmarking their systems. However, should you feel the need to push your CPU and motherboard, there are two XMP profiles to get your "freq on." XMP Profile 1 automatically gets you to 1600MHz and XMP Profile 2 automatically configures your BIOS to 1866MHz.

If that isn't your particular goal, you might also be interested in their 1333MHz and 1600MHz DDR3 that requires only 1.25 volts to operate. Those will obviously save you some money and don't require getting crazy in the BIOS to get the most out of the memory.

Unfortunately for INTEL X58 users, the new LoVo products currently only come in dual channel memory kits. This should be just fine for INTEL P55 and AMD fans out there. We've also learned that Kingston no more 1866MHz kits are being produced. It's just easier and more feasible to produce the 1800MHz products. Either way, you're still getting your money's worth as the pricing is very aggressive.

Some New HyperX Spreaders

The LoVo DDR3 Memory doesn't use Kingston's signature blue HyperX spreaders. We figure since the kit is power efficient that Kingston opted for a new metallic, green heat spreader. It kind of fits really.

What you can't see underneath the spreaders are the ICs. Kingston's engineers had to engineer and find the very best of the bins just like they did when creating their high end HyperX 2133MHz DDR3 CAS 8 memory kits. Only the very best of the ICs were used in the creation of the LoVo series. Given their design, we don't expect these kits to match the blue HyperX overclock for overclock. But, we do expect the blues and greens to match byte for byte.

Speaking of enthusiasts, if you happen to have the latest Intel Core i3, i5, and i7 processors on a motherboard sporting an Intel P55/P55A or H55 chipset, your system is readily compatible. You might want to consult your motherboard vendor first to see if a BIOS update is needed to recognize the XMP profiles.

Our particular 1866MHz kit functioned just fine on ASUS, GIGABYTE, and MSI motherboards of all flavors and sizes on hand. We didn't use all of them though to benchmark anything, but we did physically do a check so that you'll know that they'll work for you too.

About The Author

As our Senior PC Hardware Editor, Eric has been working with tech since before serving in the military where he really got to play with some very cool hardware. As for his prowess on the virtual battlefield, don't let the teddy bear exterior fool you. He can frag and pwn with the best in just about any first person shooter. You may run in to him at LANs, tech shows, and gaming shows, so do say hello.